


Fascinating

by florahart



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 18:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/pseuds/florahart





	Fascinating

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hellkitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/gifts).



If there's something Leonard's had just about enough of in his Starfleet experience (besides space, transporters, and flying in general, but these are things he's resigned to as unavoidable), it's smirking Vulcans.

All right, so they don't smirk. They just eyebrow and say they're _fascinated_ (bullshit; that word implies an inability to look away and so far Leonard's never seen anyone have any trouble diverting their attention two seconds later), and of course, _of course_ they never want to tell you straight up what's so damn interesting. It reminds Leonard of the ladies at his mama's church, with their disapproval of his unruly hair and his abiding need for science as a boy. 

Not that Vulcans disapprove of science.

Actually, it's not even all Vulcans; he's pretty sure it's mostly just Spock. He doesn't know all that many other Vulcans because they're kinda insular, for all they have buckets of experience with the galaxy that humanity's still splashin' in the kiddie pool of.

But there are two Spocks, and that's entirely enough.

"What?" he asks. He's a little defensive, but that's fair. Old Spock, and probably there's a better designation than that, but nothing quite so obviously descriptive, just took one look at him and at Carol sitting together on one side of the table, across from Jim as they work through the crew roster for relaunch, and now he's all fascinated, and since Leonard's pretty sure Old Spock has seen about a couple million human relationships in his time, on account of he's been around the block a bunch of times, some of 'em, like this one, twice, he knows it can't be the fact that two humans have formed a sleepin'-together kind of interaction that's so noteworthy.

Which means it's something about the two of them, specifically, and that goddamn means this went another way the first time. Went another way in some way Old Spock deems important. Or that it went the same way. Or that it went sideways. All he can say for sure is that it's history the guy's responding to, and that's just irritating.

"My apologies, Doctor." He looks back and forth between the three of them and tilts his head. "I forget, sometimes, that you know my younger self well." Old Spock says. "I ought not to have allowed that word to slip." 

"Yeah, but you did."

Old Spock purses his lips and offers up his other maddening word. "Indeed."

And Leonard can't get another damn thing out of him. Which is just perfect. Listening to Jim bitch and moan six or eight times a day about his ship being all broken again is enough of a pain in his ass for this trip home, which is why Leonard went and started hanging out with Carol so much in the first place.

Not that he needed an excuse; she'd apparently thought his ham-handed attempt at flirting when they uncovered Khan was sweet, and he'd always liked smart women.

That she was about as physically opposite from Jocelyn as a human woman could be was probably helpful, too.

"What's bothering you so much about it?" she asks him later, her head propped on one hand. She's lying alongside him, too close to see her body but not quite touching him. She fiddles with the hair on his chest while she waits for him to gather his thoughts.

He appreciates that about her. She keeps up with him, but doesn't rush him. Just about everyone on the ship can keep up, because it's not like anyone who can't respond right quick in a crisis lasts long on the fleet's flagship, but they're always so _urgent_ , and Leonard is from Georgia, where even still a swing on the porch with sweet tea in a sweating glass and a thunderstorm breaking the heat in the evening is a perfectly legitimate way to pass the time. He _can_ keep up, too, and the urgency is often invigorating; still, the occasional moment to take things slow is something he didn't know he needed until he never had it. Before Carol, he'd been wound tight enough to probably stabilize the warp core with his body.

"It's what he knows," Leonard says finally. He's explained before about who Old Spock is; even though the information is not widely available, it's not technically classified so much as held close by personal agreement, at the request of both Jim and Chris Pike. "It's that even though he met both Jim and me later in his timeline, we didn't know until today that he also knew you."

"He what? How'd a _fascinating_ give you that?"

"It wasn't just that. It was the eyebrow, the linger, the glance at Jim." Leonard pauses. "If your connection to me wasn't significant in some way, he wouldn't have stopped to comment. Problem is, that doesn't tell me _how_ it's significant, and this is exactly why he tries not to comment on the present. Damn it." 

Carol rolls forward a little, putting her elbow between then and forcing him to bring his arm up around her. "I can see that, but why do you assume it's a bad thing? Maybe we have an epic love story for the ages."

"Maybe," Leonard allows. "Or maybe--not that I want to think this--maybe my relationship with you hurts me again as badly as Jocelyn did. Or maybe we weren't together here--oh for fuck's sake. Which would mean in the other timeline, you were with Jim."

"I don't think so."

"He wouldn't have been quite the same. In the other timeline, his father, there's a brother… it's complicated, and that's only based on what Old Spock has somehow let slip, and what Jim got out of the meld. I'm pretty sure it's a lot _more_ involved than we know, not _less_. And somehow all of that has something to do with him, or it wouldn't have been so fucking interesting to him."

Carol nips at his chest with her teeth. "So, if I want to put all this aside for now? Because Leonard, I don't actually want an epic love story for the ages. Do you?"

"In principle, ever? Maybe? I don't know, what's the cost?"

"I'm not sure I've ever conducted a cost-benefit analysis on epic love."

"Well, when you put it like that--"

"Which I do. Look, maybe in six months, we'll decide this has been fun and move on. Maybe it's that _you_ and Jim are supposed to be together at this point, if you listen to the history of Starfleet according to Spock."

"Oh God. I love Jim a lot, but I'm pretty sure it'd kill me to--"

"Yes, I know, but as you say, the other one was different. And don't even try to tell me that if the moment were right for you both, you wouldn't be interested; this isn't an accusation, but I do have eyes."

"What? No. I mean, it would take a lot for the moment to be right. Also, in what universe is discussing my hypothetical attraction to Jim Kirk while I'm in bed with you even a little bit reasonable?"

"None, but when are we all about reason? You hate it when people are all about cold-hearted logic, and you know it."

"That's true."

"Oh hey, maybe you're supposed to be in bed with _him_ "

"With Spock? Oh _hell_ no. No, no, no."

Carol laughs and draws her hand down Leonard's chest to his belly "Maybe it's _me_. Maybe it's that Spock and I--young Spock, I mean--will get trapped in a freezing ice cave and need to share a sleeping bag to conserve body heat sometime in the next couple of months, and since in the old timeline we were lovers--"

"Yeah, that seems likely."

"Hey, it could happen. He appeals to the scientist in me in a way not so different from how you do."

"Uh. Thanks? But I meant the ice cave was unlikely."

"Please. It's not weirder than him getting stuck in an erupting volcano."

Now Leonard chuckles. "We do live slightly bizarre lives. So your point is I should just not worry about it."

"It is. Right now, we're alive, we have two more weeks to the launch, and if you haven't noticed, I have my hand down your pants, so I think not worrying is very much the thing to do."

Leonard thinks about that for a minute. "Is it okay with you if this is still on my mind?"

"As if I could change that." She rubs circles low on his belly, and of course, it _is_ slipping his mind for the moment, but he knows it will be back. And it will bother him.

Still, she's an adult and knows how to make her own choices. He shakes his head. "How I got so lucky as to fall in with a bunch of geniuses who understand my neuroses and still like me okay, I'll never know."

"You're not so bad," she says, pressing her hand over the bulge of his cock. "Though as no one else has the benefit of your thorough understanding of female anatomy, I can't explain it for any of the rest of the crew." She presses again. "Of course you'll come back to it, or you wouldn’t be you. Still, I seriously doubt a wormhole will form if we drop it long enough to make each other sweat a little."

He holds up a finger and twists away, fumbling in the nightstand for a tricorder. He scans her leg, then grins broadly. "A little? Because I'm happy to report I have no reason to believe that leg isn't up to anything we can throw at it now."

"Excellent," she tells him. "let's take her for a spin."


End file.
